


It takes more than a mattress to make a home

by EarthboundCosmonaut



Category: Holby City
Genre: Flat pack furniture, Giant gherkins, Housewarming, pickled eggs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 08:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13003464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthboundCosmonaut/pseuds/EarthboundCosmonaut
Summary: Picks up immediately after the events of S18 Ep34 - The Sky Is Falling. Bernie's back is worse than she admits. Serena sets out to redeem her earlier behaviour by helping and gains an insight into Bernie's current domestic situation. Jason sets up a handyman business.





	It takes more than a mattress to make a home

**Author's Note:**

> This one shot has been lurking on my hard drive for over a year. I decided it was time to show it the light of day before Berena fades from our collective memories.

Serena lifts her hands away from Bernie’s back.  The spasming muscles are only marginally less hard than they were when she began working on them.  The poor woman must be in agony.  “Do you have a bed?”

Bernie’s response is barely more than an agonized squeak.  “What!?”

“You said you hurt your back shifting a mattress – is the mattress on a bed?”

Bernie clears her throat.  “Ah, not at the um, not at moment, no.”

“Let me guess, the bed is still in its IKEA flat packing?”

“Bingo.”

Serena pats her shoulder.  “I have an idea.  Give me ten minutes and then I’ll give you a lift home.”

Bernie straightens up in the chair, the tendons in her neck visibly stiffening at the movement.  “There’s no need to-“

“Bernie, don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you can drive home in this state.  You can barely even stand.”

Bernie hesitates and then nods.  “Well that’s um, that’s very kind.  Thank you.”

Serena allows herself a smug grin.  There’s really no point arguing with Serena Campbell.  

She finds Jason in the staff room, pulling on his coat.  “You’re four minutes late Auntie Serena.  That’s quite punctual by your standards.”

“Give me a medal,” she mutters, without malice.  “Jason, I have a proposition for you.”

****

Bernie spends most the fifteen minutes that Serena is gone struggling into her coat.  Very much against hospital policy she has decided that she is going to go home in scrubs.  Serena’s massage had taken the searing edge off the pain, but her back is still locked rigid.  She’s not confident that she can dress herself with her back in this state and there is no way on earth that she is going to endure the humiliation of asking someone – especially not Serena - to help her.

She struggles to keep up with Serena – lacks the emotional range, she thinks, to make sense of the tides that direct her moods.   Serena has been sniping at her all day, resenting her attempts to help her with her patient load.  Implying that Bernie lacks the tact and sensitivity to work alongside the newly-bereaved Morven or to understand Jason’s needs.  Bernie had come to the conclusion that she had destroyed their tentative friendship – another casualty of her cowardice over the _Alex situation_.  And then within the space of a few minutes Serena is offering to treat her back and give her a ride home as though nothing had happened.  How different from the Dunn household, where rows fester in silence for days at a time, or the Wolfe household where her parents’ mutual loathing was expressed in a litany of barbed digs. 

Serena reappears with Jason in tow.  “Right,” she says, rubbing her hands together.  “Here’s what’s going to happen.  Jason here is a whizz with DIY.  He has very kindly agreed to assemble your bed, in exchange for a takeaway of his choice, which you will pay for and I will collect.”

Bernie glances between nephew and aunt, her mouth hanging open slightly.  She was, apparently, wrong in thinking that Serena helping her get changed was the most embarrassing thing that could happen to her this evening.  “That’s ah, that’s very kind but absolutely not necessary.”

Serena holds up a hand.  “Are you, who was suffered a spinal injury less than six months ago, currently sleeping on a mattress on the floor?”

“Yes but-“

“Yes but it’s fine because I’m a big macho Army medic who’s used to sleeping on the back of a camel while Afghan tribesmen take potshots at me?” interrupts Serena in a very unfair imitation of Bernie’s clipped intonation.

She tightens her lips, feeling her traitorous cheeks flushing pink.  “Yes but it’s fine because it’s a very comfortable mattress.”

“I think you would be more comfortable in a bed, Doctor Bernie,” intercedes Jason.  “And if you will buy me a pickled egg and a giant gherkin to go with my fish and chips I’m confident I can assemble a double bed within 40 minutes.”

Serena raises her left eyebrow in a manner that manages to convey “ _I told you so_ ” and “ _defy me if you dare_.”

Reluctantly Bernie mutters “Forty minutes.  That’s very impressive.  I’ll have to time you.”

Serena breaks into what can only be described as a smirk.  “Excellent.  We’re all in agreement then.  Let’s go.”

****

As they pull into the car park of her apartment block Serena starts to feel dubious about Bernie’s living arrangements, but is willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.  The block is a 1960s concrete construction in a slightly seedy part of town.  But perhaps it’s one of those fashionable retro conversions which has been completely gutted inside and offers sleek, minimalist living to the discerning professional.

She helps Bernie out of the car while Jason clambers out of the back seat.  Bernie is tense, even by her usual standards.  “Serena, you and Jason really don’t have to do this.”

“Uh uh, no getting cold feet now Ms Wolfe.  Eyes on the prize, you’ll have a proper bed within the hour.”  In truth she is curious as to why Bernie is being so shifty and evasive.  It’s as though Bernie doesn’t want her to see the flat, which means that Serena definitely wants to see it.

Serena takes Bernie’s keys and lets them into the lobby while Jason carries a hobbling Bernie’s handbag.  The tired linoleum tiles and scuffed walls don’t support the conclusion that the block has been recently renovated, but she’s still willing to entertain the notion that Bernie’s flat has been lovingly restored by a responsible landlord.

“Second floor,” Bernie tells her as Jason escorts her through the entrance.

“Is there a lift?”

“Out of order.”

Serena has no control over the eye roll that she gives.  “Of course it is.”

“I can manage the stairs,” Bernie says with a hint of peevishness.

She does manage the stairs, albeit at the pace of a snail and leaning heavily on the banister.  Serena’s amazed that Bernie’s managed to make it through a shift in this state.  The woman’s masochism knows no bounds.  She thinks that if she hadn’t spent so much of the day criticising Bernie than she might have noticed sooner. 

She’s been unfair – she knows she has.  She struggles at times to remind herself that Bernie has done nothing but show support since she moved down to AAU.  The vicious witch in her can’t resist needling - pushing boundaries to see whether Bernie will reveal dark, ulterior motives when placed under pressure.  Bernie, bless her, takes it all without complaint because the woman is, frankly, a saint.  A fucked up, bloody mess of a human being of course, who never takes the simple way out of any problem.  But an exceptional friend none the less, whose regular screw ups she – uniquely - finds herself able to tolerate and even (whisper it) forgive.

“It’s number 24,” Bernie says as she finally hauls herself up to the second floor landing, her voice tight with discomfort.

It is the only apartment, Serena notices, that doesn’t have a doormat outside.  But Bernie only moved in a moved in a few weeks ago.  Perhaps she bought one on her ill-fated trip to IKEA and hasn’t had time to put it out yet.

Bernie slots her key into the lock and then pauses.  “I just want you to know,” she says, her cheeks and neck tinged with pink, “that it’s only a short term let.”

With that ominous warning, she opens the door and flicks the light on. 

The three of them stand for several moments, gazing around Bernie’s flat.  It is Jason who finally breaks the silence.  “This is a bit like my old room in the supported housing unit, Doctor Bernie.  But not as nice.”

Serena has to agree.  The room in the supported housing unit, which was so hideously depressing that Serena had insisted he moved out the first time she visited, had at least seen a fresh coat of paint and a new carpet within the last decade.  Bernie’s cramped, shabby flat looks as though it hasn’t been touched since it was built by an exceptionally slapdash contractor in the 1960s.

Bernie is watching Serena nervously, her face now a vivid shade of puce.  Serena can’t force herself to smile.  “It has a Soviet era aesthetic about it that I suppose some might find appealing.”  More accurately, it looks rather as the flat of a Soviet defector might after the occupants have been hauled away for questioning and the contents turned over by the secret police.  It is small, sparsely furnished and very messy. 

“Your flat is even more untidy than your desk.” Jason observes.

Bernie is apparently incapable of speech.  Her mouth is a thin line, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor.  Serena ushers Jason towards the bedroom.  “Jason, see if you’ve got everything you need to assemble the bed.”  Jason opens his mouth to say something else and Serena shuts the door gently but firmly in his face.  She doesn’t think Bernie can handle any more of Jason’s unfiltered remarks at this moment.

Bernie is ineffectually trying to sweep a heap of paperback books on the coffee table into a stack, bending awkwardly at the waist to reach the low surface. 

“Sit down,” Serena tells her, guiding her colleague to the sofa and moving aside a pile of newspapers to make space for her.

“It’s not great, is it?” asks Bernie, unable to meet her eyes.  She groans as she lowers herself onto the couch.

Serena bites back her first reaction. _Not great? It’s fucking awful. You’re a consultant surgeon, you must have handbags worth more than this place, what on earth were you thinking?_   Instead she tells her soothingly “It’s a bit sparse, but nothing that another trip to IKEA can’t fix.”

Bernie nods dumbly.  Serena carries the newspapers over to the kitchen area and hunts around for a rubbish sack.  In the process she notes a distinct absence of cutlery and crockery.  Judging by the debris on the kitchen counter Bernie has been living off takeaway eaten from the carton with disposable cutlery.  Serena sweeps all the detritus into a black bin sack.

“Doctor Bernie’s tools are not the best quality but they will be satisfactory,” announces Jason emerging from the bedroom.  “I will require the floor to be cleared so that I can lay out all the parts.”

“Yes of course, I’ll-“ Bernie makes to lever herself off the sofa and Serena stills her with a pointed finger and a glare.

“I will do it, Bernie.  You will sit very still and try not to aggravate your back.”

Serena is not surprised to see that the bedroom floor is littered with discarded clothing.  She dumps it all in the (empty!) laundry hamper next to the wardrobe.  The only other furniture in the room is a bedside lamp, a mattress – which Serena helps Jason tilt onto its side against the wall - and a sleeping bag.  Bernie has apparently been using a rolled up towel as a pillow. 

She bites her lip hard as tears of sympathy prick her eyes.  The flat screams of misery and self-neglect.  Serena should have made more effort to check that Bernie was all right rather than snidely criticizing her friend’s efforts to help her. 

“Right Jason, your workspace is clear.  Get to work.”

She hauls the laundry hamper into the living room.  “Where’s the washing machine?”

Bernie looks aghast.  “Serena you don’t have to-“

“Save it Wolfe.  Think of it as recompense for me being a bitch to you all day.  Now where is it?”

Bernie wrinkles her nose in what Serena takes for acquiescence.  “The cupboard to the right of the sink.”

Serena loads up the machine with dark synthetics – seemingly the bulk of Bernie’s clothes – and sets the wash cycle going.  “Right, I’m going to get supper.  Any requests?”

She turns to see Bernie leaning against the back of the sofa with her eyes closed.  She doesn’t open them as she replies.  “Novocaine and a bottle of Scotch?”

“You should be so lucky,” chuckles Serena, gathering her handbag and Bernie’s keys.  She peers round the bedroom door.  Jason is organising the parts on the bedroom floor in size order.  “Everything all right?”

He looks up with a grin.  “I’ve started my stopwatch.  I’m very confident that I’ll be finished within 40 minutes.”

****

The chip shop is only a 10 minute drive away but Serena is gone for over an hour.  Bernie gets up not long after she leaves – a humiliating process that involves rolling onto her knees on the floor and then hauling herself to her feet using the coffee table for support.  She hangs her coat on the hook by the door and wipes down the surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom.  Her movements are stiff and uncomfortable, but she is spurred by embarrassment about what Serena must think of her. 

She hadn’t taken much from the family home – her clothes, the contents of her side of the bedside cabinet, a few books.  As she was the one destroying their family it hadn’t felt right to claim too many of their possessions for herself.  She’s been furnishing the flat piecemeal and without enthusiasm – there’s a limit to what one woman can ship back from IKEA in a convertible and haul up two flights of stairs, it’s not as though she ever has company.

When it’s just her in the flat she can ignore the squalor – or rather it seems consistent with her mood and the generally fucked up state of her life.  But watching Serena biting back acerbic comments has brought home how bleak it must look.  How pathetic it must seem.  The least she can do is make sure that it’s clean.

“Doctor Bernie, I’ve finished with 8 minutes 52 second to spare!” shouts Jason from the bedroom.

She goes through.  “That’s very quick.  You must have cut some corners.”  It’s obvious from a superficial glance that he’s done a meticulous job but Bernie makes a show of inspecting it, giving the bed from a good shake to test its sturdiness. 

“I haven’t, I’m just efficient.”

“So it appears,” Bernie concludes as she completes her inspection.  “Thank you Jason.  You’ve done an excellent job.  Far better job than I would have done.”

“And quicker.”

“Certainly.”

Jason offers her his toothy smile.  “For a small fee, I would be happy to help you with any other DIY jobs you have.”

Bernie honks with laughter.  “How entrepreneurial.”

“I’m a skilled worker,” he answers sincerely. “I deserve a fair wage for my services.”

“Quite right.  Man cannot live on pickled eggs and giant gherkins alone.  Well there is one job you could help me with.  I can’t get the TV to work.”

“Have you connected it to the wi-fi?”

“Well, uh, I haven’t set up the internet yet either.  They sent a box but I didn’t know what to do with it.”

Jason rolls his eyes in an uncanny imitation of his aunt.  “It’s a good thing I’m here.  You’re obviously unable to look after yourself.  You’d better show me where your phone socket is.”

Bernie sits on the sofa and lets Jason’s words wash over her as he gives her a detailed commentary on what he is doing with the wireless-router and smartTV – unfamiliar items that seem to have become mainstream at some point while she was stationed overseas.  She has started to doze by the time Serena finally lets herself back into the flat.

As well as a bag of fish and chips, she is carrying a cardboard box which she sets on the kitchen counter.  “Jason, be a dear and go and get the other box from the boot of the car while I serve up supper.  There’s a Toffee Crisp in it for you,” she adds as Jason opens his mouth in protest.

He closes it and takes the proffered set of keys.  Bernie stands – mercifully without having to roll on the floor first this time.  “What’s in the box?”

“Consider it a housewarming gift.”

Bernie peers into the box and sees that it is full of tableware: bowls, plates, mugs, cutlery, even a set of napkins.  “Serena, this is too much.”

Serena dismisses her with an airy wave of her hand.  “It’s been in my garage since Elinor went to university.  I bought them for her but Edward’s child bride had picked out a Cath Kidson set and, obviously, Ellie decided their designer crockery was better than plain old Denby.”

“Oh.”  Serena tells the story breezily enough but Bernie knows how hurt she would be if one of her children had picked a gift from Marcus over one from her.  And her children have considerably more reason to want to hurt her than Serena’s.  “Well, er, thank you.”

“Not at all,” Serena tells her, heaping fish and chips onto plates.  “You’re doing me a service.  Jason’s always complaining about how cluttered the garage is.”

At this moment Jason staggers through the door with a second box topped by a mountain of bedding.  “Auntie Serena, Bernie has agreed to pay me £10 an hour for my services.  In future I will no longer work for Toffee Crisps.”

Serena raises an eyebrow at Bernie, who shrugs awkwardly.  “It’s a very competitive rate for a handyman.”

“We’ll discuss this later,” Serena promises darkly.  “For now, let’s eat while the food’s hot.”

Bernie doesn’t have a dining table yet (what’s the point?) so they eat off their laps on the sofa.  Serena seems to be pretending that this is a fun game rather than an abject failure in basic living conditions, for which she is glad.  She is even gladder when Serena hands her a couple of pills.  “Coedine,” she explains when Bernie gives her a questioning look.  “From my secret stash.”

“Thank you,” she mouths, swallowing them gratefully.  By the time she’s eaten as much as she can of the enormous portion of fish and chips, the medication has already taken the edge off the pain in her back.  She leans back and lets Serena and Jason’s conversation wash over her, able for the first time in twenty four hours to release some of the tension she has been carrying in her body.

She doesn’t realise she has fallen asleep until she is jerking awake.  Serena smiles as she lifts the empty plate off her lap.  “Sorry to startle you.  I thought I’d better relieve you of this before it goes all over the floor.  Although a bit of ketchup might be an improvement to this horrible carpet.”

Bernie glances around.  Jason is washing up in the kitchen and the living room has been tidied.  “How long have I been asleep?”

“About half an hour.”

Just when she thought the evening couldn’t get any more embarrassing.  “Some host I am.  I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be silly,” dismisses Serena, carrying Bernie’s plate into the kitchen.  “We’re not guests.  We insisted that you bring us here and then made you buy us dinner.  If anything, this is a home invasion.”

She levers herself off the couch.  “At least let me do the washing up.”

“It’s nearly done, Dr Bernie,” Jason tells her over his shoulder.  “I’ll send you my invoice later.”

“Jason!”

“It’s fine,” laughs Bernie.  “Fair’s fair, I did promise cash for chores.”

“Hmm.” Serena’s flattened lips suggest that the conversation might not be over.  “Anyway, come and see what we’ve been doing while you were asleep.”

Bernie follows as Serena leads the way through to her bedroom.  It is transformed.  Her bed is covered by a ridiculously thick duvet and fluffy pillows, dressed with expensive-looking burgundy bed linen.  It is topped with a nest of scatter cushions (scatter cushions?! Bernie Wolfe?!) in a cream and red floral pattern.  What had previously been a sterile, off-white box suddenly looks like a real room.

“Serena, this is-“ she turns to face her friend and is momentarily struck dumb by the wide smile on Serena’s face.  What has she done to earn the friendship of this generous, forgiving, beautiful woman?  “—this is too much,” she finishes in a whisper.

****

Serena sees the unnatural brightness of Bernie’s eyes and realizes that she is barely holding back tears.

“Nonsense,” she says with the lightest of touches to Bernie’s forearm, sensing that Bernie can’t handle much more kindness tonight.  “It’s a housewarming gift.  A not entirely selfless one – I don’t want to have to find a locum to cover your shifts.”

Bernie’s eyes dart from floor to the far wall to a point over Serena’s shoulder.  Anywhere but at Serena herself.  “I don’t deserve this.”

Serena’s heart breaks a little at the sincerity in Bernie’s voice.  She raises her hand to Bernie’s shoulder and gives it a firm squeeze.  “Of course you do,” She tells her briskly.  “It’s standard issue on initiation to the Embittered Ex-Wives Club.”

Bernie snorts a little at that and finally lifts her gaze to meet Serena’s.  “I’ll find a way to return the favour.”

“I accept shiraz, baked goods and spa vouchers.”

Bernie actually laughs now, her ridiculous honking laugh that Serena cannot hear without breaking into a smile.  “Noted.”

Serena nods to show that the matter is closed.  “Right then, it’s getting late.  We should leave you to get some sleep.  Doubtless Jason will want to catch up with Pointdown when we get home.”

“How many times, Auntie Serena?” shouts Jason from the living room.  “It’s _Point_ less and Count _down_ , not Pointdown.  Pointdown’s not even a word”

Serena winks at Bernie.  “Yes of course, how silly of me.”  She squeezes Bernie’s forearm briefly before releasing it.  “Get some rest Major.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I like Dr Bernie,” announces Jason as they are driving home.  “Do you think she’d like to employ me as a personal assistant?”

“I think Bernie’s used to taking care of herself.”

“She doesn’t do a very good job of it.  Her flat was a terrible mess and she hadn’t even connected her wi-fi.”

“She’s having a difficult time at the moment,” realising the full extent of the words even as she says them.

“Because she had an affair with a woman and now she’s divorcing her husband?”

Serena takes glances at him briefly before returning her gaze to the road.  His face is a picture of innocence.  “Where did you hear that?”

“I heard some of the nurses talking about it in the staff room.”

Serena resolves to have a carefully worded conversation tomorrow about the wisdom of spreading rumours about the people that sign off their annual appraisals.  Even if those rumours do happen to be true.  “Don’t repeat that to anyone.  But yes, getting divorced, moving house, starting a new job – they’re all very stressful life events.”

Jason pauses for a moment and then suggests “Maybe I could make her some instructions for how to use her TV. Then she can record her favorite programmes to watch in the evenings. I find watching my programmes an excellent way to relax.”

“That’s very thoughtful, I’m sure Bernie would appreciate that.  But Jason, you’re not really going to send Bernie an invoice for helping her tonight are you?”

“She said she would pay me!” he exclaims, affronted as much by the change in rules as the loss of £20, Serena suspects.

“Yes I know, and it was very kind of her to want to support you in your job-hunting efforts.  But perhaps, just this once, you could waive your fee?  As a housewarming present?”

Jason’s mouth flattens as he thinks through the request.  “I suppose so.  But I’ll explain to Dr Bernie that next time I’ll charge the going rate.  After all, I have to earn a living.”

“I’m sure Bernie will be very touched by your generosity.”

She pulls into her drive and Jason checks his watch.  “It’s 9.34.  If I hurry I can watch Countdown before it’s time for me to go to bed.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”  She watches fondly as he lets himself into the house before checking her mobile phone.  She has two missed calls from Robbie (let him stew, the spineless worm) and a text message from Bernie.  She opens the message.

_I can’t thank you enough for this evening.  The flat feels like a home now.  Payment in shiraz to follow._

Her mouth quirks.  By Bernie’s stiff-upper-lip standards it’s gushing.  _Always happy to help.  Although if Jason starts demanding payment for household chores from me you will be picking up the tab_.  After a moment Bernie responds with a laughing emoticon.  Serena puts her phone away and heads indoors.  She has time for a nice hot bath and a glass of wine before heading to bed, she decides.

****

Six miles away, in a less affluent suburb of Holby, Bernie Wolfe slips between her new Egyptian cotton sheets and lets out an involuntary moan of pleasure.  The duvet is so warm, the downy pillows so cosy, the bed frame so much gentler on her tortured back.  And for the first time in weeks, she feels a tentative spark of hope for her future.  She is asleep before she has had a chance to turn off her bedside lamp.


End file.
